News and commentary on Caribbean culture, literature, and the arts

September 1, 2009

New Book: The True Nanny Diaries

The True Nanny Diaries is a debut novel from Nandi, a writer with years of experience as a journalist. Like her gritty protagonist, fate placed her temporarily in the role of a domestic worker. When the protagonist, Valdi West, left her native Trinidad & Tobago to study at Columbia University on a scholarship, she never expected to be babysitting to survive as an undocumented immigrant in America. Twenty years later, Valdi refuses to consider her derailed life. Instead, she focuses her razor sharp intuition and cutting wit on her babysitting clique: old lady Madam Lucian, who supplements her meager babysitting wages by selling homemade bread from her Brooklyn apartment; flighty Monica, who’s not above throwing in a few “perks” into her Green Card marriage; and Ava, her one time confidant, who outgrows her friends as graduation, a government job, and legal American status seem all within her grasp. Set further and further adrift from her dream of becoming an award-winning writer, Valdi’s life becomes hopelessly entangled in the unending demands of her latest employers, a dysfunctional East Side couple with a five-year-old boy. Valdi’s chance encounter with her estranged, wildly successful twin sister while minding the boy,pushes her to the brink.
Nandi was born in London and grew-up in Trinidad & Tobago. Her writing has been published for almost 20 years, most extensively in Canada. Her literary essay “Still Shipwrecked,” was published by the international peer review journal Changing English: Studies in Research and Culture (Taylor & Francis/University of London). Her plays have won awards, and have been featured in notable festivals including the Inaugural Caribbean Regional Drama Festival.